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77 pages

English

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In the long tradition of the anti-hero in English literature, award-winning author Daniel Jacob has created a whole bunch of them - each able to stand shoulder to shoulder with a Flashman or anyone from the pages of a Waugh novel. With the touch of a Tom Sharpe for grand farce, the grotesque Crooke-Wells siblings trace their mean, mendacious and downright nasty steps through a series of plots and pitfalls in their attempt to accumulate unearned and entirely unmerited wealth. Standing like a beacon in this sea of iniquity is the mother, whose string of illicit love affairs seems positively honest by comparison. This is the story of an upper-crust English family which is part of a sub-group known as The Hereditary Rich. Beautifully written and splendidly wicked, The Silence of the Shaggy Rug is not for the faint-hearted or politically correct.

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Publié par	Libri Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	16 décembre 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781912969340
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0692€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

The Silence Of The Shaggy Rug
Daniel Jacob
First published in 2021 by Redshank Books
Redshank Books is an imprint of Libri Publishing.
Copyright © Daniel Jacob
The right of Daniel Jacob to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
eISBN 978-1-912969-34-0
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder for which application should be addressed in the first instance to the publishers. No liability shall be attached to the author, the copyright holder or the publishers for loss or damage of any nature suffered as a result of reliance on the reproduction of any of the contents of this publication or any errors or omissions in its contents.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library
Cover and book design by Carnegie Book Production
Libri Publishing
Brunel House
Volunteer Way
Faringdon
Oxfordshire
SN7 7YR
Tel: +44 (0)845 873 3837
www.libripublishing.co.uk
Dedicated to:
LXX
And to the generations of perfidious parliamentary plunderers whose predilection for piggishness made penning this publication possible.
In the Bleak Midwinter
Lord Archibald Penley Crooke-Wells wasn’t the front runner in desiring to add weight to Marjorie Trembel’s already sagging innerspring mattress. But he was the first of an archaic English coterie, the hereditary rich, to seek her hand in marriage. This age-old minority group safeguard their penchant for perpetuation by intermarriage, mutual greasing-of-the-wheels, and a cherishment of class solidarity. Therefore, despite being twenty years his junior, and lacking any sentimental attachment, she’d agreed to the merger and its breeding presumption.
On her twentieth birthday in nineteen seventy, Marjorie became Lady Crooke-Wells, née Trembel, when she and Archibald were conjoined in wedlock.
* * *
After ten years of mutual monotony, another Christmas nailed to the William IV mahogany chaise longue in their claustrophobic four-floored, five-bedroomed Georgian house in Bloomsbury, failed to find favour with Marjorie. Yuletide festivity was to be in the Caribbean with offspring, Rodney, Tristan, and Cuthbert – Nanny of course in tow to take the irritation of parenting from Mummy’s shoulders.
They’d not be penned at the departure gate with the package-peasants, who, for a few hundred pounds, would soon blight quaint Spanish fishing villages with booze, brawls and bingo.
The luxury of a coddled Concorde flight was but one manifestation of her raison d’être for marriage to Archibald. If their Louis Vuitton monogrammed luggage – cosseted comfortably in Concorde’s baggage compartment – could sneer, it would have. For glissading five miles above – and faster than a bullet from a bolt-action Purdey – they would land nearly six hours ahead of the basement bargain bags of the masses dumped in the hold of the galumphing Jumbo below.
Although grave bound for well-nigh eighty years, it would’ve thrilled Louis to know his latest luggage was winging its way for three weeks of sumptuousness at the Club Royal Columbus, Barbados.
* * *
Christmas Day, and the sun was intent upon impelling the temperature beyond thirty degrees. Nine-year-old Rodney had struggled hard, but Nanny’s determination had prevailed, and she’d piled oodles of sun cream upon his pale podgy body.
The morning had been ace as he’d spent tons of time breaking the legs off the bleached remains of starfish on the seashore and hurling them into the surf. After lunch, whilst Nanny had dragged his younger brothers, Tristan and Cuthbert, off for their afternoon scream and nap, he’d settled on digging in the soft pink sand of Crane Beach. He didn’t mind playing alone for that was the same at home.
When he’d started the undertaking, Rodney perceived creating castles as a great pleasure for he possessed a good imagination. But, after a time, he found that the task was becoming more and more problematic. The mediaeval edifices kept collapsing as the soft dry sand was not the best construction material. He sat staring discontentedly at the lacklustre turrets and towers. Even the moles that regularly burrowed in the croquet lawn at home would have scorned those he now surveyed.
Peeing in the sand brought forth no benefit. ‘I’m probably lacking a thirst quencher’, he thought. Undeterred, he ordered Joseph, the beach lounger man, to lug loads of water in a plastic bucket from the outdoor shower. Only then did the fortifications measure up to his satisfaction. Taking a breather to admire his labour, he was outraged to see that, despite all the donkeywork, within minutes the turrets became as parched as their predecessors, foundered and flopped.
Exhausted from toiling in the hot sun, he gave up castle construction and adopted instead the excavation of a crater. The plan was to dig a deep hole, then position fan-like palm leaves from fallen fronds over the pit, and to camouflage them with a bit of sand on top. Upon completion, he would lounge against the trunk of a coconut tree casually sipping Cola whilst waiting until someone fell into his mantrap, then delight in the consequent kerfuffle.
It was a pity neither Tristan nor Cuthbert were there. It would be joyful to see Nanny sprint to save one of them from being buried alive, and it would make his efforts worthwhile. If that puny four-year-old whining mongrel Cuthbert perished in the pit, it would be ace. Yes, ace as he was the smallest and it would’ve saved lots of sweat not having to make the hole so deep.
While it was not difficult to detest both brothers, it was Tristan who was the easiest. Despite being two years younger he was taller, and a hideous limelight-seeking show-off. Seeing Nanny stroking his haystack blond hair was as puke-worthy as watching her force-feed Cuthbert. That very morning, she’d put only a smattering of sun cream on Tristan. Then, although he’d spent all morning in the sun, he still didn’t look anything like a tomato when she’d dragged him and Cuthbert off to rest.
Meantime, in their absence, to cripple a normal-sized person meant the crater had to be deep. He measured this by standing in the hole and digging until his belly button was level with the rim. Excavating with a plastic spade made construction jolly hard work. The heat and toil took its toll and Rodney became thirstier than he remembered ever being before, his mouth as dry as the sand at his feet.
Daddy had gone to get himself a drink from the Swashbuckler Beach Bar ages ago and Rodney thought he also deserved one after slaving so hard. The sand was as hot as the coals on a fakir’s fire as he scampered over to the bar with his toes burning to blister point.
Upon arrival, he found it deserted and sat waiting for what seemed to be like an everlastingness, which annoyed him as his plan was to complete the excavation with all haste. It was important to get it finished, so when someone fell into the hole, sprained an ankle or, better still, got carried away on a stretcher, he was there to watch. But if Nanny had by then taken him to dinner and he missed the tortuous screams of agony, it would put a damper on his entire holiday.
On a previous occasion, when his favourite drink had run out, the bar lady went to the room at the back to get one for him. She might be there, he thought. Rodney poked his head around the door and there she was, and so was Daddy! He was buttoning up the front of her shirt; it had sprung wide open revealing that she wore nothing underneath.
Seeing Rodney made Daddy jump out of his skin and rush to the door. Bending down with his face within an inch of Rodney’s, Daddy said he was helping the lady because she had a sore hand and couldn’t hold the buttons. He gave Rodney a one-pound note saying not to tell Mummy because Mummy didn’t like Auntie Aryanna, and Daddy would thrash the living daylights out of him if he ever uttered a single word about it.
Rodney thought doing up the buttons must have been as exhausting as burrowing in the sand because Daddy’s face was so red and sweaty. Auntie Aryanna’s hand improved like greased lightning for, when Rodney raised his eyes to ogle at the contents beneath the shirt, it was with disappointment he saw she had done all the buttons up. Until then, Rodney never knew he had a black auntie living behind a bar on a beach in the Caribbean. Neither Mummy, nor Daddy, had ever mentioned her before. Musing, he wondered if it was because Mummy didn’t like her.
From that moment on, Rodney loved his new auntie, and Aryanna was a beautiful name. She must have been just as surprised to find out a little white boy from England was her nephew, and made up for every missed birthday their separation had elicited by giving him as many ice creams, cold drinks and sweets as he desired. Poor Auntie Aryanna’s hand gave oodles more problems, for Rodney noticed Daddy helped her quite a lot during their three-week vacation, and also gave him more one-pound notes.
Although he’d only had a brief glance, he rather liked his auntie’s bosoms. Other than Mummy’s, and Nanny’s little ones, and the wet-nurse’s – Daddy called her the Jersey cow – he had never seen any others and the two black ones were particularly ace. I’ll tell Lysander what a black titty looks like when I get home, he decided – Lysander being chosen because he was Rodney’s only friend and no doubt had never seen a white one, never mind two blacks.
While Rodney was at the bar, Mummy’s already sienna-tanned skin was being bombarded with sufficient ultraviolet rays to keep a covey of Consultant Dermatologists as rich as Croesus.